The Game That Brought the Excitement Back - World Chess Championship 👑 2023

The 2023 World Chess Championship match between Ian Nepomniachtchi and Ding Liren has been a thrilling contest so far. The match is being played in Astana, Kazakhstan, and after 11 games (out of 14), Nepomniachtchi is leading 6-5. However, the game that caught my attention was game 4 of the match, where Ding Liren played a very deep pawn sacrifice, followed by an exchange sacrifice to create a positional masterpiece. Before this game, Ian Nepomniachtchi was leading the match and the one playing better chess.

In this game, Ding Liren played the black pieces and opened with English Opening (1.c4). Nepomniachtchi chose the Anglo-Indian Defense (1…Nf6), which is a flexible and popular choice at the highest levels. The game followed a theoretical path for the first few moves, until Ding Liren surprised everyone with an unusual capture on move 6:

6.Qxc3 is more common than 6.bxc3

The game was fairly balanced until came up with an interesting pawn sacrifice in the following position:

Position after 15.c5!?

 After 15…dxc5 16.e5 Qh6 17.d5

White gets an imposing center for the cost of just one pawn. The game was still complex but Ding created another imbalance in the following position:

White to play

Here Ding sacrificed the exchange with the beautiful 29.Rxd4! and after 29…cxd4 30.Nb3 g5 31.Nxd4:

Position after 31. Nxd4

White has this powerful knight on d4 ready to invade Black’s camp. Surprisingly, even though White is an exchange down White’s position is already much better and Ding converted his advantage convincingly.

If you want to learn more about this amazing game, you can watch my video analysis of it on YouTube (https://youtu.be/lJ6RsSviGNc). In the video, I go into more detail about the variations and explain Ding Liren's thought process behind the sacrifices.

In conclusion, game 4 of the 2023 World Chess Championship match between Ian Nepomniachtchi and Ding Liren was a masterpiece of positional chess. Ding Liren's exchange sacrifice was a brilliant move that paid off in spades, and his subsequent play was close to flawless. It is games like these that remind us why chess is such an exciting and beautiful game!